Finally a new logo for Apple Maps.

Well, It now feels good to at least see an update on the apple maps logo.

As we all remember, the unfortunate debut of apple maps with 2012. It was introduced with a bang and failed horribly.

The failure was just not limited to the software! It was just not constrained to the agony the users faced when they landed in the middle on a freeway only to hear, "You have reached your destination!". It was extended till the front end and to be precise the logo of the app itself!

It was matter of discussion on many blogs, websites, and forums. How can such a blunder be passed with a company of this magnitude! 

But It is good to see, the software evolving, a stable release is now out. And more importantly, the logo which was unchanged so far is also (finally) updated! 

Hack for Draw Something (Infinite bombs in Draw Something)

Well, It has been lot of time i haven't been here. Today i got smthing interesting and thought of sharing. Theres a new app named Draw Something. It has done wonders winning awards all over the place and I love the app too!

But this is what happen when you are involve in anything so much. You tend to know it very well and I just found a small hack which eliminates the use of "bombs" from this app.

Q. What is a bomb in Draw Something?
A. Each player is given a number of "bombs." As a guesser, the bomb eliminates letters not part of the answer; as a drawer, the bomb gives them a new set of guess words to choose from.

How to eliminate the need of a bomb?

Step 1: Consider you have to guess something like this -

Note that you have the following alphabets -


Step 2: Close the app and Open it again.

Note the list of alphabets again -


Step 3: Compare and Eliminate non repeating words.


You can keep the same ones while eliminate the non repeated ones.

Now you are left with the exact jumbled alphabets to make the exact word!

Consider the non-eliminated words and try to form a word from it.

Bingo!!



Enjoy!

Domestic Airlines! you kidding me?

When i was a child, I was so excited to see planes flying in sky. It was my dream to sit in one of them. I still remember my first flying experience! But the last journey i had would be one of my most memorable incidents.

It was an United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to San francisco. 10:30 am. I was still having jet-lag from my recent travel back from India. Since I was actually shifting completely, so even though the journey was of only couple of hours still I had like 100lbs of luggage!
Everything was going smooth. I checked in my BIG bags. Took a boarding pass. Went through Security check. Only thing which was left was to board a flight.

As soon as the gates were open, I saw there was more rush today. It took me no time to realize that there were more number of people than the capacity! And people were still pouring in! It was surprising to me and I thought - Are they going to make them sit on the roof today? and I laughed at myself. I never knew i was going to be a part of the joke. As i reached to board the plane.. I was informed that my seat has already been occupied. What? They asked to get a new seat number by joining a new line which i think was longer than infinity. Awed and Shocked, I had no choice but to be a part of the new queue. After one hour, thats 30 mins after the expected departure of the flight, they told me that I wont be able to board in this flight!
Even though i had a paid ticket, a boarding pass, a confirmed seat, I was not going to make it!

I furiously rushed to their customer center. I realized that its just not me who is facing this, but a bunch of people who were following me and heading towards customer care more furiously! It was a nightmare for the staff. They were making adjustments, fixing things, allowing people to board other alternate flights. A rarely seen chaos.

People were shouting, fighting with the staff and they were doing their best to sooth all of them. All this ended up with a negotiation. They gave all the people $400 coupons and apologized! Now it was my turn on the counter. I had nothing to lose. So i just tried, I said, I wanted to go in that flight! My sound was pissed and irritated. Already builded tension helped me and they gave me an extra ticket along with the coupons! You Kidding me? - I laughed.

I came back home. Took rest. Came back in the evening for traveling with the free ticket. It was one of its kind experience.

India-Pakistan, Face-off!

I know the internet is flooded with emails, pictures, blogs, website notes, rss feeds about the next ICC Cricket World Cup Semi-Final, India v/s Pakistan. But, it is impossible to explain the importance of this match. This is not a semi-final.. this is a MEGA-final!

It is not the first time when India and Pakistan is facing each other in a world cup match. Even though the overall result of the clash has been dominated by Pakistan (69 wins over 46 defeats in 119 encounters) but in World Cup, Men in Blues has given a clean sweep to Pakis (4 wins by India and NO defeat)!

World Cup 2011 is about to face the heat again. But this time, the color green is in tremendous form. Pakistan team has been through a rough time and has survived out of the most ridiculous phase. Even though the world cup is hosted in South Asia, not a single match is played in Pakistan. "World Cup Pakistan me nahi ho sakta, par World Cup Pakistan me aa sakta hai". Thats what the Pakistan team believe and trust me they have nothing to lose.

Indian team, on the other end, is struggling with their bowlers. Inspite of good batting, the bowling has let India down at crucial stages in the initial matches. But not to forget, India is considered to be the team with a box of surprise. And thats what makes this game more interesting, isn't it?

I am all set for the Big Game.

Hoping to see a good game of cricket!

All the best! This time, Bleed Blue!

No big cake for 127 hours, Social Network and Inception.

The 83rd Oscar Ceremony was a surprise!
I am sure it was just not me who was expecting a blowout of 'Inception' or '127 days' or 'Social network' all around. Just like we expect a boombang start from Sehwag and Sachin. But, it was not what was written on the cards. Inception, 127 days, Black Swan, Social Network were overshadowed by 'The King's Speech'.

The King's Speech (Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, stood out as the Best Picture this year. Colin Firth was selected as the Best Actor. Tom Hooper as Best Director. David Seidler as Best Screenplay.

Inception on the other hand, rated one of the highest in the popularity chart this year, had to get satisfied with Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Visual Effects.

127 hours, a struggling real life story, was well appreciated but had be satisfied being in the nominations.

Black Swan, Natalie Portman was the most deserving candidate for Best Actress and she bagged it happily.

Social Network, had very impressive editing and was awarded by Best Editing oscar award. The other awards bagged were Best Music and Best Writing.

In Animation movie catagory, Toy Story 3 stood out tall. It was the Best Animated Feature Film and also pocketed the Best Music (original song).

Everybody needs a website.

Having a website is so important.
In fact it is becoming one of the necessities.
A personal website not only provides you an online space where you can host your work but also allows people all around the world to access your content 24x7!

It is the simplest and economical way to project your work.

But, How simple is to build a personal website?
What is required to build a website?

In simple words, A website can be defined to be made up of 2 things-
1) domain name.
2) file hosting server.

Domain name, is the name of the website you want.
for eg. "www.google.com" is a domain name... All we type in the address bar while browsing is purchased by someone.
So, first thing while building a website is - Purchasing a domain name.

These days there are many options available in domain names. A domain name can end in .com, .edu, .org, .info, .mobi, .us, .net, and maybe couple of dozen more to this list.
But this is just to differentiate your website.
.com stands for company.
.edu stands for educational institute
.org for organizations and so on..
Now www.google.com and www.usc.edu makes sense!

This was the first step! Second step is to get a place where you can keep all your files and images and videos and stuff.

File Hosting Server, is a place where you keep all your files required for the website.
Files can include text files, .html pages, images, videos, css, flash files etc.

Once you have these two things ready you are all set to get a website up.

A web developer can take on from here and can build a website as you want.

YouTube - Is it good for uploading professional videos?

YouTube after taken over by google has emerged as one of the most popular video hosting website.
But the question is - Is it really good for uploading professional videos?

Here are few facts to help us understand more about these video hosting websites.
The user-made video hosting concept started in late 90's . Today there are more than 20(maybe even more) free video hosting websites. Out of which YouTube has its own share of popularity.

Because of this reason, I decided to upload few videos on YouTube . I think it is one of the simplest and easiest site where one can upload a video. But YouTube seems to degrade the quality of a video.
One of the main differences in YouTube and other sites is the freedom of selecting a thumbnail image. It might seem to be a simple thing, but is very crucial in case of uploading some professional videos. Following are few things which one should note when uploading a video on YouTube -
1) YouTube doesnt take the initial image for thumbnail of the video.
2) It provides you with 3 choices (approx. the image after the video is played for 25%, the image after the video is played for 50% and then third image when it is played for 75%)
for eg. if your video is of length 1 min. The three thumbnails you get would be approx. image at 15th sec, 30th sec and 45th sec.

This forces us to have the most important part of our video to be at exactly at the center of the video. I see this as a drawback and definitely a thing to be considered while using YouTube to upload professional videos.

As compared to others, Vimeo gives choice of 9 thumbnail images and so on.